Harry Sidebottom - King of Kings

Ballista half-turned. The man rising to speak was the one who had looked familiar as Ballista entered the audience chamber. That long, artfully curled hair, a short, neatly barbered beard, with at its bottom a ruff of hair teased out — Allfather, if I were not so tired, I would be able to place this man.

'What happened to my brother?'

Ballista stared stupidly. His mind was blank.

'My brother, the commander of the legionary detachment in Arete, my brother, Marcus Acilius Glabrio.'

Memories flooded into Ballista. He wondered how to say what he had to say.

'My brother?' The voice was tense, impatient.

'Your brother… your brother died a hero's death. The Persians were catching us. With one other, your brother said he would delay them. He said that, like Horatius, he would hold the bridge. None of us would have got away without his sacrifice. He died a death worthy of a patrician family of Rome, worthy of the Acilii Glabriones. A hero.'

There was a pause.

'You left him to die.' There was raw fury in the patrician tones. 'A jumped-up barbarian like you left a patrician of Rome to die. You left him to be cut down while you ran away.' The young nobleman's anger choked his words.

'It was his choice. He volunteered. I did not order him.' Ballista was not going to let himself be abused by a spoilt, pampered brat of the Roman nobility.

'You barbarian bastard. You will pay for the death of my brother. I, Gaius Acilius Glabrio, swear it by the gods below.'

The young patrician would have said more, he was even moving towards Ballista, when two silentarii appeared and, without words, herded him back to his seat.

'If there are no other questions?' The emperor's words cut across everyone's thoughts. 'Arete has fallen. The road is open for the Persians, to Northern Mesopotamia, to Cappadocia. The time of troubles has returned. Again, as just three years ago, the road lies open for Shapur — to Syria, here to Antioch, to the heart of our empire. Bitter war looms. Each one of us can ponder in private the implications of the news brought by the Dux Ripae. We will meet again in four days' time at the tenth hour in the evening after the circus. The consilium is over.'

The emperor stood up, and everyone else prostrated themselves as he walked out.

Bitter war looms, thought Ballista. When he faced Shapur again he would not fail. He would not let himself be betrayed again.

As they got to their feet, Cledonius quickly took Ballista's arm and led him from the audience chamber.

Outside in the sunshine, the ab Admissionibus kept them moving at some speed towards the main gate.

'Impressive, Ballista, most impressive, even by your standards. You have been back at the imperial court for less than a morning and already you have made two lots of extremely dangerous new enemies.' Cledonius adjusted his grip on the northerner's arm.

'First you make an enemy of Macrianus, the Comes Largitionum, one of the richest and most powerful men in the empire. A man who has two active and dangerous sons. Then, not content with that, you manage to make Gaius Acilius Glabrio, a strong-willed member of about the noblest family in the imperium, to swear an oath of vengeance against you. Very impressive.'

Ballista shrugged. He decided it was not the moment to tell Cledonius about Videric and the Borani — and, anyway, they were hardly new enemies…

'Luckily for you,' Cledonius said, as he steered Ballista through the great courtyard, 'very luckily for you, some of my servants are outside the gate with saddled horses.'

'What?' In his surprise Ballista stopped. 'Are you suggesting that I ride out of the city? What — go into hiding or flee across the borders?'

Cledonius' long face split into a huge grin. 'No. I just thought that, in your condition, the horses would make it easier to get across town to see your wife. You did know that she was here in Antioch?'

'And that is the Donkey-drowner.' Cledonius' words only registered on the surface of Ballista's thoughts. In truth, nothing had penetrated deeper since the ab Admissionibus had said that the northerner's wife was in the city.

'Flooding is a great problem here in Antioch in the rainy season. From November through to March — even April in some years — heavy cloudbursts fall up on Mount Silpius, and the water pours down into the city. Every gully turns into a flash flood — the Parmenios river is the worst, that is why the locals call it the Donkey-drowner.'

Why is he telling me this? Ballista wondered. He had spent a week in Antioch the previous year. Julia is here. Isangrim, my beautiful son is here. With a horrible lurch, Ballista realized that he had just assumed that Isangrim would be with Julia. He had not asked. Allfather, Deep Hood, Long Beard, Fulfiller of Desire, let my son be here.

'Back in the reign of Tiberius, they had a magician called Ablakkon set up a talisman against the floods. They are very proud of it, not that it seems to do much good.'

Of course, there was no reason that Cledonius should know that Ballista had spent a week in Antioch. What would Isangrim look like? How tall would he be now? It was thirteen months and twenty-two days since Ballista had seen him. He would be four and a half now. Allfather, One-eyed, Terrible One, let the boy recognize me.

Cledonius was still talking. 'Up there, you can see…'

And Julia… What would she look like? Ballista pictured the black — very black — eyes, the olive skin, the black hair tumbling to her shoulders. Julia — the daughter of a long line of Roman senators, married to a barbarian diplomatic hostage become Roman officer — how would she welcome him? He thought of her tall but rounded body, the firm breasts, the swell of her hips. Over a year without a woman; Allfather, he wanted her.

'… the Iron Gate, a complicated system of sluices.' Sensing Ballista's distraction, Cledonius sounded slightly put out. 'I thought that, as a military engineer, you might be interested.'

'No, I'm sorry, it's very interesting.' I can add it to the water clock at the palace as another piece of hydraulic engineering to study while the emperor decides my fate, Ballista thought sourly.

They turned their horses past the temple of Zeus, out of the omphalos, the 'navel' of the city, and into the main street. The great colonnaded street of Tiberius and Herod ran for about two miles right across the city. Unsurprisingly in a city of a quarter of a million people, it was crowded. Numberless kiosks were jammed between the columns on either side. They sheltered a bewildering range of merchants: greengrocers, goldsmiths, stonemasons, barbers, weavers, perfumers, sellers of cheese, vinegar, figs and wood. Ballista studied the cabins with their brushwood roofs. He could detect no order in their arrangement. More respectable trades, silversmiths and bakers, were jammed up against cobblers and tavern keepers.

Cledonius turned. His long, lop-sided face was smiling. 'They say that each clings to his pitch as Odysseus clung to the wild fig tree above the cave of the monster Charybdis.'

Ballista thought about this. The poetry of Homer was common currency among the elites of the imperium, its use an empire-wide badge of status. 'Does it mean that the sites are too lucrative to lose, or that if they lose them they will fall into an abyss of abject poverty?'

Cledonius' face did not change; it continued to smile an open, guileless smile, but he looked sharply at Ballista. It was easy to underestimate this barbarian. Never easier than now, when, muddied and bloody, he looked like everyone's idea of a big, witless northerner. It was all too easy to forget that he had been brought into the empire as a teenager and educated at the imperial court. Cledonius thought that only a fool would gratuitously make an enemy of this man.